The Economist has published a fascinating book, Megatech, edited by Daniel Franklin. Mr. Franklin gathered some of the world’s leading technologists and thinkers to describe the technologies in the labs and the trends that are already in play as they lead to 2050.

The Content Marketing Institute and Ion Interactive released their report about “The Symphony of Connected Interactive Content.” It has some very good insights into the use of media at each stage of the sales process.

Consumers drive everything, and Crimson Hexagon’s new report derived from the monitoring of social media conversations provides insights into technology, health and fitness, transportation, and entertainment.

The Heritage Foundation has released the 2017 Index of Economic Freedom, one of my favorite resources. There are lots of data about international economies from the World Bank, the IMF, and others, but this is different, and is a great addition to that library. It includes insights into the regulatory environments of the economies, as well as the activities of black markets and corruption. The report is free, with a vastly improved interactive website, and downloads of the entire book or individual chapters. The list of country rankings is available on a page of its own. The top five are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Australia. Canada came in seventh, and the US fell out of the top fifteen for the first time, now ranked seventeenth.

The new administration is taking aim at trade agreements and some trading partners. The fear about this is likely overdone, and the focus will be more on what happens inside those agreements as practical matters

The Federal Reserve’s latest statement shows continued befuddlement about why they can’t get inflation moving higher and why the raw numbers of employment are weak. So they called a time out and will wait for things to change.

Is this print’s chance to make a flanking move into the marketing budget. The eMarketer analyst says “Ad blocking is a detriment to the entire advertising ecosystem, affecting mostly publishers, but also marketers, agencies and others whose businesses depend on ad revenue.” He then says, “The best way for the industry to tackle this problem is to deliver compelling ad experiences that consumers won’t want to block.”